After years of bickering, EU claims breakthrough in migration talks

By LORNE COOK
Associated Press

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union countries have made a breakthrough in migration talks, sealing agreement on a plan to share out responsibility for migrants entering Europe without authorization, the root of one of the bloc’s longest-running political crises. EU interior ministers clinched the deal late Thursday. Europe’s asylum system collapsed eight years ago after well over a million people entered, most fleeing conflict in Syria. The 27 EU nations have bickered ever since over which countries should take responsibility for people arriving without authorization, and whether other members should be obliged to help them cope. Swedish Migration Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard, whose country brokered the agreement, says the deal is “a historic step and a great success.”